46 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



said, " What is it about them ? " Well, he talked away a little 

 about them. He knew nothing about insects. After a little he 

 told me what the insects were doing. Well, it happened that the 

 State entomologist didn't get any job on that because from what 

 little he told me about the habits of the insects I readily identified 

 them, because only a little while before somebody nearer by had 

 brought me some of them. They were simply the red-humped 

 caterpillars. I judge they must be rather more numerous this 

 year than usual. I felt somewhat chagrined that the good 

 people over to Mercer didn't know those were not brown-tail 

 moths. 



Well, now, one thing I try to impress upon Commissioner 

 Gilman, and every one in connection with this work is the import- 

 ance of educating the people, educating the boys and girls, so- 

 they will know not only what these insects are but so that they 

 will know what other insects are. 



One thing as individuals w^ ought to do. In every way we 

 ought to second the effort of the department to educate the 

 people — boys and girls, men and women. If you have got an 

 insect out on a tree that is troubling you, go and look at it 

 and see what it is, and if you can't find out definitely what it is 

 and it is making the least bit of trouble, why put it into a box 

 and send it over to Prof. Hitchings and let him tell you what 

 it is. And then if he tells you, try and remember it. Now we 

 have during the year on all of our farms more or less trouble- 

 some insects. Some of them we know about. Some of them 

 we don't. And there is an object for study. There is an object 

 of thought. I suppose those insects were all created for some 

 wise purpose. I suppose so — I don't know — because I can't 

 very well call in question the wisdom of Nature's works. At 

 the same time I can say that I have sometimes thought that 

 these insects were just like some other things that we have — they 

 are intended on purpose to make us work a little harder and 

 make us fight better for a living than we should if they were not 

 there. Sometimes it makes us stronger men and women. 

 Sometimes when we allow them to run away with us, we don't 

 recognize the cause perhaps, but they do us a good deal of 

 injury. So then as individuals we want to cooperate in every 

 way we can with the Agricultural Department. They are doing 

 some fine work over to the State College in the Agricultural 

 Department in educating the students who are there, in what 



